Israel 2014 Day 8: Hertzilyah

6/20/2014
Israel 2014 Day 8: Hertzilyah

Today was a pretty chill day. We started with a trip to the beach. Given that it's a Friday and the large majority of things close down before Shabbos (Fri night to Sat night), it was a day to start our Shabbos-ing early and just chill at the beach. Our destination today was Hertzilyah Pituach, a fancy beach area just north of Tel-Aviv.

Herzliya Beach!

Chill times

Lunch!

Hmm... the Mediterranean sure is salty! I'd forgotten how salty it was, I suppose I must have swam in it before (perhaps from Greece? I think that may have been the Aegean Sea). You gotta remember not to open your eyes too much underwater or dunk your head in the water too much because the salt is kinda intense. Nothing like the Dead Sea a few days ago, though, that was insane!

We got some chairs with umbrella shades and got some food at the beach, a nice setup. I also got an Iced Coffee... very good for this crazy warm weather! We also got some dips, pita, 2 eggs and salad. Tasty lunch while chillin' on those chairs. After soakin' in the sun for a while, we headed to the mall to wander!

Haha, awesome

Monopoly

We got a "Burekas", kind of like the "Borek" that I like so much back home. We had a good wander for a while, and I found some balloons with Hebrew writing on them... exciting! They were a bit expensive for balloons, like a couple dollars each. It seemed a little much for normal balloons, but when do you have the opportunity to get a "Happy Birthday" balloon written in Hebrew! So I went for it. Turns out... oh... the price contained the cost of filling them up with Helium. Didn't notice that on the sign written only in Hebrew :) So, I kept most of them for later as planned, but got them to still fill up one or two for Michal's niece.

The mall was like most malls, with mostly stores that I knew from home: Vans, Gap, etc. I was trying to find a store with local clothing, maybe something with some Hebrew on it. Of course, all the shirts had stuff like "San Francisco", "USA", "California" on them, not a shirt with Hebrew to be found. Haha, I certainly don't need any more "California" shirts!

New Surfer-y Magen David I got

I continued wandering and found an Idan Raichel CD for Michal, her favourite Israeli artist. I also found a cool Men's clothing/hip Menswear store, and there was a pretty modern-looking stainless steel Magen David necklace, in a bit of an unusual surfer-y style. Definitely not the kind of thing I'd ever be able to find at home, so I was super psyched and got it. Awesome. :) After this bout of shopping and finding my sister a present... it was time for an Ice Aroma again... as you do.

Chillin in the stroller

Then we bounced around this jungle gym and I got foam shot at me from this launcher thing. Hilarity ensued!

Michal's bro getting some sweet air

We met back up with Michal's brother and sister-in-law, and headed to go bounce on this Gymboree thing which was hilarious. We played in there for a while, while I got chased, got foam/rubber balls shot at me from a cannon, and tried to balance on a balance beam. All in all, good times.

This just so happened to be beside a McDonald's, so we finally went for it and tried the insane sized burger. Michal's brother bought me the "Mega Big America", the crazy burger we'd seen advertised a few times. It was hilarious and awesome and we shared it like 5-ways (or, at least, that's the story I'm sticking with).

We finally gave in and had to try this insane "Mega Big America" burger, just because it existed

This thing was insane

Arrgghhmmm!

That burger was enormous and insane and awesome.

After a fun time at the mall, we headed to Michal's cousin's home for Shabbos dinner. Everyone came, as always, and it was an awesome family event again. Great food and even greater company!

And now time for more silly faces.

The movie "Chef" in Hebrew!

Shabbos Dinner!

As always, Israel does salads right :)

And then, an amazing Oreo Cake in an even more amazing Hebrew dish from a local artist!

It was fun to be there with everyone, and I got a chance to chat with the boys for longer, too. I busted out the Google Translate app a bit to help with our conversation. Everyone had fun with it getting some of the translated words wrong.

We finished the great eventing of food and good times with an Oreo Cake, made in this AWESOME dish (I will have to get one like it!) It was a dish by a local artist with Hebrew writing on it, which contained the recipe for the cake. Another great day!